June 6, 2000
Well, I just got back from class. I put some noodles into water for lunch, and I will write to you while I wait. Today was not a good day in class. Today, the kids just would not pay attention until I finally lost my temper. It is hard to lose your temper effectively if you do not speak the language. Here are the givens for the equation:
1. I got about three hours of fitful sleep last night, 2. I did not eat yesterday--too busy, had "other things" to do during my lunch break such as going to the bank and I had to make an important call which had me rushing back to my desk to avoid being late, and then I taught until 10:30 p.m. and wasn�t remotely interested in food when I got home, and 3. it is about 105 degrees AND raining today, the world is a sauna, and 4. I taught two straight periods before lunchtime and all the kids have on their mind is eating and sleeping, which they find sufficiently more important than English class, and I suppose that I agree with them, albeit that I have spent sufficiently more energy on English classes lately than either eating or sleeping. Those kids just need to prioritize like I do! ;) They need to pay attention so I can teach them to write incredibly complex compound irregular sentences like the one that took up more than half of this paragraph. And I call myself an English teacher...
So that you won`t worry�I did actually get some yogurt for breakfast this morning, and I will soon be enjoying my noodles, and I suppose that I can get some dinner tonight before I go to teach the adult class. Tonight`s class will be interesting because we are all going to watch the fireflies, which are supposed to make their debut tonight. Seriously, the Japanese have it on the calendars when the fireflies will be out and about. They told me about it last week, and I have not seen a single one yet, and I have been looking. Given the precision with all other natural events (with the exception of earthquakes and the 20 minute delay for the beginning of the rainy season) they have been right on schedule. They told me when it would snow, and I didn�t believe them based upon the sunrise in the clear sky on December 20th, but sure enough, it snowed and it didn�t stop. Incredible.
Well, I worked for two hours yesterday morning, and I had the best letter for you all, then saved it to my disk, got a lot of boxes in Japanese, chose the wrong box and lost the entire thing. It`s one of those things that happens when you don�t read Japanese fast enough (or Kanji at all�) and it is two hours completely lost. I was sick. I had hoped that I could reconstruct most of what my letter to you said, although it is tragic that the first was lost, because I put a lot of energy into it, and when it was lost, I just didn�t know if I could reproduce it without taking a nap first. Wow. First of all let me give you another monkey story. We frequently get into conversations with Japanese people about what we eat in America, which I find very ironic since the Japanese will tend to eat most anything, as long as it is artistically arranged that is. I mean, given that seaweed is on most everything, and you know how I feel about raw horse meat and tentacles of any sort, I find it funny that they are surprised to hear that we don�t eat things like sea urchins. Maybe it is just me, but I have problems eating anything that has a name like URCHIN. It is actually not that bad as long as you can trick yourself into not thinking about what you are chewing. I have gotten pretty good at it, but I have my moments when �mind over matter� is just not in my mental capacity. Ken was talking with his go-between, they were discussing what is eaten in the various countries in which he has lived, worked or visited, which total more than 100. Needless to say, he has eaten most anything you can imagine that people eat. In many places, monkey is a common food, and monkeys are common here in Japan, so Ken was wondering if the Japanese people ate monkey. It would not have surprised us at all to learn that monkey pancreas was some sort of delicacy, and we were wanting to know the name for it so we didn�t order any by mistake. His go-between was shocked when Ken asked �Do you eat monkeys in Japan?� and with a horror-stricken face asked �DO YOU EAT YOUR MONKEYS IN AMERICA?????!!!!� It was hard to keep a straight face and tell her that unless people wanted to pop down to the zoo for a snack, then monkeys were not available to be eaten. If they were wild in the woods like deer or bear or wild hog, then people would most likely shoot them, marinate them, BBQ or smoke them, and then swap recipes that were sure-fire winners to get rid of �that gamey taste� and things like mon-kebobs would be common fare at Summer Festivals. But let`s face it, deer, rabbit, squirrel, boar and the other furry wood inhabitants do not share much living space with primates. What about the primates in the deer stands totin` rifles? (Daddyhorse and Uncle David excluded, naturally�but you two gotta admit, though, that you have seen the occasional boy with monkeybrains out there in the woods. The only major difference is the hunter orange cap. I heard once, from Julia Sugarbaker I believe, that what separates us from the animals was our ability to accessorize�)
I got off the subject. Sorry about that. Oh yeah�Monkeys on the Menu. Ken informed his go-between that we did not have monkeys to eat in America, but that since monkeys are plentiful in the woods, like deer and bear and boar, that he just wondered if they were hunted and eaten like the deer and bear and boar are. She was truly taken aback and horrified that we would even consider such a thing. Silly us. She set us straight, this woman who regularly eats jellyfish at lunchtime. Does anybody else get my mental picture here? Anyway�everytime we hear or see something with regards to monkeys now, we will ask each other �Do you eat your monkeys in America?� and the object of the game is to keep a straight face. Now, you know the joke. I am bad at this game�it just makes me laugh every time�I can`t help it.
Which made Elizabeth`s letter that I got this week even MORE funny, and here is an excerpt from her letter about her recent trip to New England. Since I haven`t asked her if it is okay that I put her in my letter, so I am sending her a copy of this letter (hi JRFF!) so that she is aware that she was the topic of convo today.
(from Elizabeth:)
�From there, we went to Vermont and drove all the way over to Burlington where you can see the mountains of New York State across Lake Champlain. One of the highlights of my trip to Vermont was a tour through...you guessed it...Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Factory!!! That was even better when I found out we got free samples at the end of the tour (Cherry Garcia and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough were the flavors-o'-the-day!)!! I had never eaten any Ben and Jerry's before, and now I am completely hooked!! (and I really don't even go for ice cream very much, but this was great!). I thought about you during the tour when they showed us the little mini-containers they send over to Japan!! I couldn't believe they send that stuff all the way over there. The tour guide said they have some really weird flavors that they make specifically for the Japanese market, such as some kind of herbal tea flavored ice cream. Can't say that sounds too appetizing to me! Have you seen any of this over there? She also said they had to re-name some of their ice cream flavors because they wouldn't translate appropriately...things like "Chunky Monkey" became "Chunks OF Monkey", etc. She also said the product started selling much better in the Japanese market after they took the picture of Ben and Jerry off of the container. Said the people over there didn't understand why these 2 homeless looking guys were on the ice cream containers. Some worried it would make you LOOK like them!! It's strange how different societies can be, isn't it? (end)
(this is Lynley again:)
In response, besides being incredibly jealous at all she has seen in New England, I have to say that Ben & Jerry`s ice cream is one of man`s greatest inventions. That stuff is wonderful, sinful, delectable, and terribly expensive. In those tiny containers she mentions, which we have definitely seen since there are three in the freezer as I write this letter, there are about four mouthfuls. They are so small that you don�t have to worry about checking the serving size information on the container. It is in Japanese anyway, so it wouldn�t matter, but if you could read it, you would see that there is enough ice cream in that container to satisfy the ice cream craving sweet tooth of your average-sized dwarf hamster. The single-serving rating is based on the same hamster-scale, I think. Not like the pints of Haagen-Dazs ice cream that we can pick up in Harris Teeter. You ever check the serving size on THAT? It says it is supposed to feed four people. Right. Yeah�I would like to see that. Trust me, on the days that I went and picked up a pint of Haagen-Dazs, I`ll wager that anyone who came near me with anything resembling the notion that I would share it with them would soon be running for cover, and Lord help them if they came at me with a spoon. You just try to send three people to split up my pint of ice cream�there will be spoons flying everywhere. Give it time, and I think that it could be a contender for a new Olympic BloodSport. I mean, they have ice hockey, snowboarding, and now, the third winter sport that is death defying could be called Spoon Sparring or something similar�I am sure that Nike could develop a shoe that was ergonomically perfect for it, and with a little promotion on television, you know, with some catchy phrases and a few �cool people� spoon sparring and wearing Tommy Jeans and looking really tough and perhaps growling a little, it could really take off!
On a more serious note, it is easy to see why women would dominate the sport. There is something medicinal about ice cream that aids in the treatment of PMS. For most people, that stands for Pre-Menstrual Syndrome. In my case, it was Peri-Menopausal Stress and I contend that it makes that �wussy� PMS look about as irritating as that time that the Pizza Hut guy left off the extra cheese when you specifically asked for it. I mean, even when the order is wrong, pizza is still pizza, and tastes pretty darned good. For you men reading this portion, I don�t want you to feel left out. I know you suffer when the women you love suffer, so you get to experience PMS vicariously through them, you poor things. Suck it up, you guys, you have it easier than you will ever know�go stock your freezer with ice cream (frozen yogurt or sherbet works too, although MeeMaw`s homemade ice cream is the very best remedy) and just continue to be the understanding gems you are. Most of my women friends would admit that if a man remembers her favorite ice cream, that`s better than flowers most any day of the week.
Back to Elizabeth`s letter�to explain the TEA flavored ice cream, etc�yes, the most popular flavor for MOST things is macha, or green tea. You may remember that macha is the ceremonial green tea that I have mentioned in previous letters. There is macha cake, macha bread, macha ice cream, macha candy, macha-flavored syrup to put in milk, macha pancake mix, macha-EVERYTHING. (The last sentence was completely void of exaggeration.) Macha tastes bitter until you acquire the taste for it, and then it is actually still really bitter. In all honesty, I like macha, both the tea itself AND the ice cream, but I still prefer Chunky Monkey, which is so-named because it has vanilla ice cream with hugs chunks of chocolate and real banana (monkey food), and nuts too, if I remember correctly. It is yummy. Ben & Jerry`s has interesting names for lots of their flavors. Chubby Hubby is one, and has bits of pretzels and chocolate in there, what the stereotypical hubby would chomp on while watching TV. Cherry Garcia is named for the late �Grate�ful Dead singer Jerry Garcia, an honor given posthumously because the founders are Dead-Heads and Jerry Garcia was partial to cherries�and there are more, with lots of little jokes here and there�very clever advertising campaigns help the business, but what sells is a really great product. Mmmmm�oh GREAT! Now I am craving it. That`s just great.
I just finished slurping down my noodles. They were ice cold, which is fine because after all this talk of ice cream, I couldn�t imagine eating something hot�especially in the sauna (my staff room, the school, the world at large.) Ken bought me a little battery-powered fan to put on my desk, and it is saving me today, or at least my torso. The rest of me is completely plastered inside my clothes�they weren`t kidding around about the humidity thing. It is rather moist here.
I am really not complaining, I hope you realize that my tone is rather tongue-in-cheek today, and does not reflect unhappiness. We are happy with our decision to stay in Japan for another year. This past one really went by some kind of fast! In fact, I better get on the ball if I want to do all I have planned in the next year! AARGH! On Friday of last week, we went to Himeji to renew our visas, and met our friend Chan at the train station in her town and spent half the day with her, catching up as we did all the necessary paperwork. On the way back, we did a little shopping. I am forever amazed at the choice of English words and phrases that are immortalized on clothing and foods. In one shop, there was a collection of T-shirts, just in time for the summer. The shirts are tailored to look nice on skinny little girls, and there are English words in script across the front, very cute and colorful. One of them says �Honey� and another says �Sweetie.� The third, I kid you not, says �Cosmography.� Same script, same color scheme, I am not making it up. If I had thought to take a picture of it, it would have been great to send to you to illustrate my point. We see it EVERYWHERE�the complete disregard for our native tongue, the obliterated English, the mangled bits of language that find themselves on my desk from time to time. You see, a common practice in Japan is that if you travel anywhere, you are expected to bring a treat for EVERY member of the workplace�not to do so is considered very rude. So there is a neverending supply of little treats on my desk, and there are huge stores full of foods to be taken back from tourist sites. Because we backpacked through Kyushu during Golden Week, we were forced to purchase and mail a large box from the post office to ourselves at home, with large boxes of non-perishable treats for our teachers and staff. I have 70 people to give treats to at my school. Ken has two schools of his own. Jessica also goes to school (no she is not exempt) and so you do the math. Most of the time when we travel, we are off on the weekends, and we just don�t talk about going. We just go, and then we only talk about our travels to our good friends here, for whom we buy treats. Except for our gaijin friends�the other JETs in the program. There is an understanding that it is not necessary to gift each other, unless you are staying at the person`s house or something, and then it`s just good manners! But unless our schools KNOW we are going somewhere, and have had to give us leave to go, we don�t offer the info so that people are not offended when we don�t feed them. Mailing the box from Kyushu was not terribly expensive, and we were able to also send back pamphlets and guidebooks we weren`t using, and various things we could lose to cut down our pack weight. So this morning, a guy brings me a little individually-wrapped miniature pie and on the front, the following is written (exactly, including the punctuation and lack thereof): �MILK PIE with MILK and CUSTARD It is, delicious, adelicious milk pie that used milk voluminously. The taste of refreshing air of a plateau does!� I bowed and thanked my colleague, then spent about ten minutes staring at the package. I have no recollection of ever tasting voluminous milk before, but being the adventurous sort, I opened the package and ate the pie, since NOT to do so would also be considered very rude. I decided that it was delicious, not A-delicious, that is �anti-delicious.� I also thought that it was, in fact, a little voluminous, albeit that I haven`t the slightest idea what they meant by that. I am not sure if THEY knew what they meant, especially when it comes to refreshing plateau air and the obvious connection with relevance to custard pies. Yes, I am being critical again, and I apologize. It just made me laugh so I thought I would share.
Okay, given that I have moaned about the weather and complained about the food and generally ridiculed everything I can think of for this letter, I will close. I do not feel as negative about life as this letter sounds. I hope you were able to laugh a little at my expense, and also hope that you are having an exceptional day�please let me hear from you! Lots of love to all, Lynley
P.S. Jessica made the recent observation that boys do not have to wear bras. I agreed with her that it was a little unbalanced at times between boys and girls when it came to undergarments. She went on and said �and what about PANTYHOSE, Mom?� I mentioned that boys had to wear neckties sometimes. She was not consoled. She is a little apprehensive about the imminent puberty thing, and frankly she might be secretly wishing that she was a boy. Her response to the necktie comment? She just rolled her eyes and shook her head and said �Yeah, mom�they REALLY have a hard time, don�t they? They have to be careful that they don�t choke themselves.� Then she walked back into her room, pondering her own wisdom. Ahhh, to be ten again. What am I saying???? Before I know it, she will be wanting to be 15, and we simply can`t have THAT!!! Okay, I am ending for good now, till next time�Love, Lynley